Guar is a leguminous plant from which a guar gum is extracted. Chemically, guar gum is a galactomannan which is a polysaccharide polymer with a galactose on every other unit of a mannose repeating backbone. Purified and chemically modified guars have gained utility as thickening agents and food additives.
E. Nuernberg et al., "Carboxymethylated Galactomannan Products as Pharmaceutical Adjuvants", Acta Pharmaceutica Technologia, 30(1), pp. 50-55, 1984, discloses that carboxymethylated guar absorbs more water than natural guar when the two materials are held at the same relative humidity. U.S. Pat. No. 4,109,018 discloses that guar gum can be used to produce a low calorie diet bread. European patent application EPO 0 281 360 discloses hydrophobically modified non-ionic polygalactomannan ethers which are useful as thickening agents for aqueous systems.
It is known in the art to use an acid crosslinked carboxymethylcellulose identified as croscarmellose sodium, type A, NF or crosslinked polyvinyl pyrrolidone or sodium starch glyconate in the manufacture of disintegrating tablets. Yet in spite of an ongoing need for an alternative to the predominate use of crosslinked carboxymethylcellulose for this application, There was no suggestion in the art that a new and cost effective substance could be substituted for the long established crosslinked carboxymethylcellulose.